by Nan Ryan
Carefully, cautiously he sank slowly into her and both exhaled with pleasure. Shanaco then withdrew, almost completely, before thrusting into her again. Deliberately taking it slow and easy, he didn’t give her all of himself. Prudent, fearful of hurting her, he thrust only a portion of his rigid length into her.
Just enough to make her want more.
Maggie knew he had more to give and she wanted it, wanted it now, wanted all of him. She rolled her hips. She sighed and moaned. She arched her back. Her breasts swayed back and forth and her damp hair spilled down over her face.
Watching the two of them in the mirror, Shanaco felt his passion blaze out of control. He clasped the twin cheeks of Maggie’s pale bottom, spread them and drove a little more deeply into her. The fire in Maggie’s blood immediately boiled hotter.
She murmured his name as they began to languidly move together. But just when Maggie had found his slow, sensual rhythm, a loud knock came on the door of the suite’s sitting room.
Maggie instantly tensed. A little sob escaped her lips at the prospect of being left in this state of suspension.
“It’s all right, sweetheart.” Shanaco knew just how to handle the situation. He kept his voice low, soothing. “The door is locked. No one can come in. We’ve all the time in the world.” A vein on his head throbbing, he couldn’t have stopped if the entire world had wanted into the suite.
He continued the rhythmic, unhurried thrusting. Inch by inch he sunk more fully into her, increasing the length of his strokes, filling her completely. Driving all doubts and logical thought from her head. “I’ve got you, baby. Feel me, love me.”
“Yes, Shanaco, oh yes,” she breathed, choking with sexual excitement, the intrusion forgotten in the frenzy of the desire. Nobody else existed. There was just the two of them, their wet, heated bodies slipping and sliding together so perfectly.
“There’s just you and me,” Shanaco assured her, “nobody else. Just us.”
Maggie responded to his low, soft-spoken assurances. She began rolling her hips and bucking back against her lover. Her palms, knees and toes on the towels, her hair spilling into her eyes, Maggie was so hot she behaved like an untamed creature. She made love with total abandon, her wildness thrilling her lover more than she could ever have imagined.
Inflamed by her total abandon, Shanaco couldn’t get enough of his beautiful lover, nor could he give her enough. He longed to increase her pleasure, to take her to new heights of ecstasy. He leaned forward, clasped Maggie’s shoulders and drew her up into a kneeling position back against him.
They knelt there before the mirror with him still fully inside her. “That feels good, doesn’t it, sweetheart?” he asked, his lips against her feverish temple.
“You know it does,” she managed breathlessly.
Taking her with him, Shanaco sat back on his heels and spread his knees wide. He positioned Maggie’s soft bottom on his hard thighs, placed a gentle hand on her throat and urged her head back against his shoulder.
His voice low and husky, he said, “Maggie, Maggie, I so want to please you. I want to give you pleasure and…”
“Darling, I don’t believe I can possibly experience any greater pleasure than you’ve already given me.”
“Yes, you can” was his whispered reply.
Maggie found out that she could.
While Shanaco’s fingers stroked the sensitive hollow of her throat, he placed a hand on her stomach. He kissed her temple and began stroking the line of fine red hair going down her belly. And all the while he continued to rhythmically thrust his pelvis against her buttocks, plunging his hard, throbbing flesh high up in her.
Maggie sighed and squirmed and thrilled to the fiery fingers stroking her throat, her breasts, her belly while Shanaco continued to drive into her. The sight of them in the mirror, making love in this unique manner, added to the potent carnal pleasure. A pleasure that became so intense any lingering inhibitions on Maggie’s part swiftly melted in the scalding heat.
Emboldened, shamelessly pursuing even greater elation, Maggie murmured, “You really want to give me even more pleasure, darling?”
“You know I do,” he said, his voice hoarse with passion.
“I believe you know what I want you to do.”
“Yes, but I want to hear you say it. Ask me for it, Maggie. Anything you want, I’ll do it.”
Maggie was so hot, she did just that. Saying words she’d never before spoken, she asked him to do what she most wanted. Hearing her lovely, cultured southern voice speak those words aloud thoroughly excited Shanaco.
Their eyes meeting in the mirror, Maggie sighed with bliss when Shanaco gave her what she had wanted so badly. He put his hand between her parted thighs, found that tiny nubbin of sensitive female flesh and began to expertly caress her while he continued to thrust into her.
“Shanaco, Shanaco.” Maggie thanked him, her head falling back on his shoulder, her eyes closing.
“Yes, sweetheart, I know, I know.”
For the next several minutes Shanaco sat back on his heels on the towel-covered floor and made love to Maggie, shamelessly watching in the mirror, lifting and lowering his pelvis, thrusting into her. At the same time his fingers were stroking, coaxing, circling. And his deep voice was encouraging, caressing, praising.
Maggie’s eyes opened, then closed. Then opened again. She, too, watched as they made exquisite love, secure in the knowledge that this man she loved so much would never be shocked by anything she said or did during their heated lovemaking. Nor would he ever leave her suspended, wanting more, unsatisfied.
Maggie was right in that assumption.
But she had no idea that Shanaco was now in sexual agony, his need to climax so powerful he had to bite the inside of his jaw to keep from coming.
Shanaco fought off his approaching orgasm, but it wasn’t easy. Maggie’s wild red hair was whipping about in his face. Her beautiful, feverish body was slipping and sliding so gloriously on his. In the mirror he could glimpse the slick female flesh he was caressing. And Maggie was saying his name over and over in a litany of love.
Shanaco knew he couldn’t hold back much longer. The effortless control that he had always prided himself on was missing with this woman he loved so much.
Now Maggie’s body was gripping him madly and she was breathing rapidly through her mouth and gasping, “No, no-o-o…I…I…”
“Yes, baby,” Shanaco eagerly urged, feeling the deep contractions squeezing him. “Let it come, darling. Let go. Come with me.”
Maggie, hotter than she’d ever been, was seized with a joy so potent it was frightening. She screamed out Shanaco’s name in her building ecstasy. Shanaco gave what she begged for, pumping forcefully into her, taking her all the way to total rapture. And when he was sure that her climax was all she needed and more, he let himself go.
His orgasm explosive, he shuddered violently.
His deep groans of satisfaction mixed with Maggie’s cries of fulfillment. Until at last, together they tumbled over onto the floor, murmuring “I love you, I love you,” breathing hard, completely spent.
Finally they fell silent.
There was a loud knocking on the suite’s door. They looked at each other and smiled.
“What do you bet our dinner’s cold,” Shanaco said, struggling to his feet to don a robe.
Maggie laughed and stayed right where she was.
Thirty-Nine
Shanaco and Maggie blithely ignored the disapproving looks from the justice of the peace, J. Martin Weeks. Holding the marriage license issued to Shan Cooper—Shanaco used his white mother’s family name—and Maggie Bankhead, the justice peered at Shanaco over his wire-rimmed glasses and frowned. He shifted his gaze to Maggie and shook his head.
But he performed the brief ceremony, and at ten minutes past noon, Mr. and Mrs. Shan Cooper exited Weeks’s office smiling. The pair spent most of the snowy afternoon shopping. Shanaco told Maggie she could choose anything she wanted or needed to take up
to the ranch.
“How will we transport our treasures?” Maggie asked as hand in hand they walked into a cavernous dry goods store.
“We’ll buy a wagon to haul everything,” Shanaco replied.
“In that case…” Maggie said as she dropped his hand and moved toward a table of glassware.
When they left the store hours later, Maggie had made many purchases for the new home she was to share with Shanaco. Each item she had picked up, he’d said, “You want it, get it.” Assuring the proprietor they would be back for their purchases in a couple of days, they left.
“Back to the hotel now?” Maggie asked.
“Not just yet,” Shanaco said. “I want to take my beautiful bride down to dinner this evening.”
“Yes!” Maggie was enthusiastic. “I’d like that.”
“Then we’ll need something elegant to wear.”
Maggie smiled. “You are so handsome in evening clothes. When you walked into the officers’ ball I almost swooned.”
Shanaco remembered the ball as well. “When I saw you in that lilac velvet gown with your hair falling around your shoulders, I wanted to come right over, grab you and kiss you senseless in front of all those officers and their haughty wives.”
“Really? I had no idea,” Maggie said, pleased.
“Yes, you did,” he accused, and stopped directly before a ladies’ boutique. “They say this is the finest shop in Santa Fe. Think you can find something suitable in an hour?”
“Watch me!”
“No. I’m not coming in with you, Maggie,” he told her. “I’ll be just down the street at a men’s store.”
“You’ll come back for me?”
Shanaco kissed her forehead, then winked at her. “What do you think?”
“I love you,” she said.
“You better.”
It was nearing four-thirty in the afternoon when they hurried back toward the hotel. The snow had continued to fall throughout the day, and now as evening approached, it was heavier, the flakes bigger and wetter. There was no longer any horizon; it was a total whiteout. And it was cold, bitter cold.
The newlyweds laughed as they rushed into La Fonda’s opulent lobby. Inside a half-dozen guests were seated around the huge fireplace, talking and drinking coffee. They immediately fell silent. They turned and stared and it was easy to discern what they were thinking.
Shanaco’s jaw tightened and his silver eyes blazed. He took Maggie’s arm and forcefully ushered her to the grand staircase. Halfway up, he stopped, turned to her and said, “This is how it is going to be for you, Maggie. People staring and whispering.”
Maggie shrugged slender shoulders. “Let them stare and whisper. I couldn’t care less, darling. I need no one’s approval but yours.” She went on up the stairs. Exhaling, Shanaco followed. In the suite, she said, “Give me my dress. I don’t want you to see it until I’m wearing it.”
“Fair enough,” Shanaco said, and handed her the package. “We’ll dine at eight if that suits you.” She nodded. “Which means we have time to relax.” He started to grin. “Or to do anything else we can think of to do.”
Maggie smiled, tossed the wrapped package onto a beige brocade sofa, threw off her cape and said, “Bet I can get undressed quicker that you.”
“You have yourself a wager,” he said. Dropping the package containing his newly purchased evening clothes, he shrugged out of his jacket and then peeled his buckskin shirt up over his head and off in one swift, fluid movement.
“I win,” he said within seconds when all his clothes lay on the floor and he stood before the blazing fire, totally naked.
“Yes? Well guess what the prize is,” Maggie said saucily, shedding the last of her garments and taking a step toward him.
Shanaco laughed, swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. While she clung to his neck and giggled and kicked her bare feet, Shanaco managed to turn back the counterpane, tossing the heavy spread to the foot of the bed. He yanked the covering blanket and top sheet down out of the way and shoved the half-dozen satin-and-lace-cased pillows up against the tall mahogany headboard.
Then he carefully placed Maggie in the middle of the bed against the stacked pillows. She sighed happily when Shanaco joined her. But she gave him a puzzled look when, instead of taking her in his arms, he stretched out on his back beside her and folded his hands beneath his head.
“Let’s play a game,” he said, his eyes flashing with mischief. “Let’s see just how long we can keep from making love.”
Maggie laughed with delight, turned onto her side facing him, rose up onto an elbow and laid a warm hand on his belly. “By the looks of things,” she teased, pointedly focusing on his rapidly forming erection, “it’ll be about five minutes.”
“Five minutes? Why, darlin’, I can’t possibly wait that long.”
At eight that evening the handsomely dressed newlyweds walked into the hotel’s crowded dining room. Again people turned to stare, but Shanaco and Maggie hardly noticed. Relaxed and happy, the pair had just spent a couple of incredibly pleasurable hours in bed and were so in love they had eyes only for each other.
At the far end of the marble-columned room, discreetly hidden behind lush potted palms, a six-piece orchestra in evening attire played dinner music while white-jacketed waiters deftly weaved their way between tables with loaded trays balanced on upraised palms.
The meal was sumptuous and the lovers were famished. They ate with gusto. At last the smartly uniformed waiter brought the coffee and dessert.
Maggie took one look at the perfectly molded blancmange, patted her straining midriff through the lush turquoise velvet of her new gown and leaned across the table to whisper, “I can’t possibly take one more bite lest I pop right out of this dress.”
“Push the dessert away then, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ll have a little treat sent up to the suite later.” He arched dark eyebrows in a devilish leer and added, “You can get out of that dress and really enjoy your dessert.”
“You are so thoughtful,” she said. “I’ll become a spoiled woman.”
“You’ll become my spoiled woman,” he said, then turned and almost imperceptibly waved his hand in the air.
At once the six-piece orchestra began playing the sweetly sentimental love song, “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.”
Her eyes round with surprise, Maggie stared at Shanaco. “You? You had them play…?”
“I did,” Shanaco said, reaching for her hand across the table. “And when we celebrate our golden wedding anniversary, I’ll have them play it again.”
Tears sprang to Maggie’s eyes as she gazed at the perfectly groomed, strikingly handsome man who was her adored husband. When she could speak past the tightness in her throat, she said, “Shanaco, can I ask you to do something?”
He gently squeezed her soft hand and said, “Ask me to do anything but stop loving you.”
At that, the tears spilled over and slipped down Maggie’s cheeks. Shanaco tossed his napkin on the table, pushed his chair back, came around, helped her to her feet and escorted her out of the dining room.
Once they were on the stairs and alone, he stopped, took a clean white handkerchief from the inside breast pocket of his dark evening jacket and offered it to her.
“What is it, darling?” he asked. “Tell me and I’ll fix it.”
Maggie dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief, laughed at herself, then sniffed, “I’m sorry, I…Nothing’s wrong. I’m behaving foolishly, I know. It’s just…just…you’re so good to me and I love you so much and I…I…”
“You’re just happy,” he supplied the words.
“Y-yes.”
“So am I, sweetheart, so am I.”
Forty
The snowstorm finally passed.
After four days of the wind-driven blizzard roaring through the Sangre de Cristos, a bright warming sun finally rose on the city of Santa Fe. As the sun climbed higher, light streamed in through the tall windows of th
e La Fonda hotel suite where two honeymooners slept.
The sunshine awakened Shanaco. He blinked, tossed back the covers and went to the windows. He stood for a long minute looking out, checking the condition of the streets, peering up over the buildings to the mountain peaks beyond.
“Could that strange new light actually be the sun?” a sleepy Maggie asked from the bed.
Shanaco turned and smiled at her. “Hard to believe, but it is. So get up, lazybones and get dressed.” He came to the bed, yanked the covers off her and said, “Let’s go home, sweetheart.”
“If you’re waiting on me, you’re wasting time,” Maggie told him and bounded out of bed.
By 8:00 a.m. the warmly dressed pair were ready to depart. Shanaco’s black stallion and the roan mare were hitched to a heavily loaded wagon. The packhorse—also weighed down—was tied to the wagon’s rear. Stashed beneath the wagon’s high front seat was a loaded pearl-handled revolver. Maggie was already sitting on the bench seat, and directly behind her, balanced on a crate, Pistol barked his growing excitement.
Shanaco stood in the street. He carefully checked the bridles and riggings yoking the horses to the wagon. Finally satisfied, he walked slowly around the wagon, examining, yanking on taut ropes and leather straps securing the cargo. He didn’t want to start up a steep, snow-covered grade and lose everything due to careless packing.
“Will we get there by nightfall?” Maggie asked when Shanaco climbed up onto the seat beside her and unwrapped the long leather reins from around the brake.
“With any luck,” he said, and flicked the reins over the horses’ backs. “I calculate we’ll reach the house with at least an hour or more of daylight left.”
“Good,” Maggie said with a smile. “I can’t wait. I’m almost as excited as Pistol.”
The pair headed out of Santa Fe with their purchases. Atop the many valises and boxes and crates and barrels, sat a brand-new cane-bottom armless rocker. They had laughed when they bought the rocking chair until the clerk had looked at them piteously and shaken his head. Now they laughed again on seeing the rocker riding high atop the load.